Plus one GTX 670...

Brand new GPU architectures are typically packaged in reference designs when it comes to power, PCB layout, and cooling. Once manufacturers get a chance to put out their own designs, then interesting things happen. The top end products are usually the ones that get the specialized treatment first, because they typically have the larger margins to work with. Design choices here will eventually trickle down to lower end cards, typically with a price point $20 to $30 more than a reference design. Companies such as MSI have made this their bread and butter with the Lightning series on top, the Hawk line handling the midrange, and then the hopped up reference designs with better cooling under the Twin Frozr moniker.

ASUS has been working with their own custom designs for years and years, but it honestly was not until the DirectCU series debuted did we have a well defined product lineup which pushes high end functionality across the entire lineup of products from top to bottom. Certainly they had custom and unique designs, but things really seemed to crystallize with DirectCU. I guess that is also the power of a good marketing tool as well. DirectCU is a well known brand owned by Asus, and users typically know what to expect when looking at a DirectCU product.

Power and Value

We have seen our fair share of mini-ITX cases and system builds over the last six months, including rigs from Digital Storm and AVADirect. They attempt to offer a balance between performance, power, noise and size and some do it better than others. With the continued development of the mini-ITX form factor more users than ever are realizing you can get nearly top-end performance for gaming in a smaller package.

Today we are taking a look at the iBuyPower Revolt, in particular the Revolt R770, the highest end base offering of the system. Built around a small, but not tiny, PC chassis iBuyPower is able to include some pretty impressive specifications:

Intel Core i7-3770K processor

Custom built Z77 mini-ITX motherboard

NZXT CPU water cooler

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 2GB graphics cards

8GB DDR3-1600 memory

120 GB Intel 320 Series SSD

1TB Western Digital Blue hard drive

You get all of this in a case that is only 16-in x 16-in x 4.5-in built with a glossy black and white color scheme. The company claims that the Revolt was "designed to be a gaming system for any location" including a home theater, a dorm room or in your study. It includes "vents and air channels positioned precisely to deliver cool ambient air exactly where it is needed" and "integrated atmospheric lighting system is customizable in color."

Check out or quick video review below and then follow on to the full post for more photos of the system and a quick check of performance!

ASUS has finalized the design for its Kepler-based DirectCU Mini graphics card. The new card combines NVIDIA's GTX 670 GPU and reference PCB with ASUS' own power management technology and a new, much smaller, air cooler. The new ASUS cooler has allowed the company to offer a card that is a mere 17cm long. Compared to traditional GTX 670 graphics cards with coolers at approximately 24cm, the DirectCU Mini is noticeably smaller.

The DirectCU Mini features a GTX 670 GPU clocked at 928MHz base and 1,006MHz boost. It also has 2GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus. The card requires a single 8-pin PCI-E power connector. Video outputs include two DVI, one DisplayPort, and a single HDMI port. The ASUS cooler includes a copper vapor chamber and a single CoolTech fan. According to ASUS, the DirectCU Mini is up to 20% cooler and slightly quieter than previous GTX 670 cards despite the smaller form factor.

This new card will be a great addition to Mini-ITX-based systems where saving space anyway possible is key. It is nice to know that gamers will soon have the option of powering a small form factor LAN box with a GPU as fast as the GTX 670. Even better, water cooling enthusiasts will be happy to know that the card still uses a reference PCB, meaning it is compatible with existing water blocks made for the current crop of GTX 670 cards.

Pricing and availability have not been announced, but the small form factor-friendly GPU is now official and should be coming sometime soon.

Gigabyte is launching three new factory overclocked graphics cards featuring a Kepler GPU, custom PCB, and custom cooler. The factory overclocks are notable, but will cost you. Specifically, the company is producing versions of the GTX 660 Ti, GTX 670, and GTX 680.

The Gigabyte GV-N680OC-4GD takes the GTX 680 GPU, places it on a custom PCB, and pairs it with 4GB of GDDR5 memory. It features two 6-pin PCI-E power connectors, and Gigabyte’s Windforce X3 450W custom cooler using a triangular fin design that allegedly increases cooling potential. While the GDDR5 memory clockspeeds have not been increased over the reference clocks, the GPU core and boost clockspeeds have been pushed to 1071 MHz and 1137 MHz respectively. The following chart shows the differences in clockspeed and memory over the reference design.

The GTX 680 is not the only card to get a custom makeover by Gigabyte, however. The GV-N670OC-4GD is a custom GTX 670. With this card, Gigabyte has set the base clockspeed at 980 MHz – the boost clockspeed of reference cards – and the boost clockspeed at 1058 MHz. Gigabyte has also doubled down on the GDDR5 memory by packing 4GB onto the custom PCB. The memory clockspeed remains the same 6 Gbps as reference cards, however.

This card uses the same Windforce X3 cooler as the cust GTX 680, and as a result has a triple slot design that looks identical to the N680OC-4GD. If you look just above the PCI-E connector though, you can see tell them apart by the product name.

Finally, we have the GV-N66TOC-3GD which overclocks the GTX 660 Ti GPU to the max. Factory clockspeeds are set at 1032 MHz base and 1111 MHz boost. Memory also sees a small bump from 2GB reference to 3GB. On the other hand, the memory is not overclocked and remains at the reference 6 Gbps clockspeed. This card also has a triple fan Windforce cooler, however this version is not the triple slot design found on the GTX 670 and GTX 680s SKUs – only dual slot.

All three of the Gigabyte GPUs feature two DVI, one full-size HDMI, and one full-size DisplayPort connector for video outputs.

All three factory overclocked graphics cards feature respectable GPU overclocks, and it appears that Gigabyte has provided ample cooling for each GPU. The triple slot, triple fan version on the N670OC-4GD and N680OC-4GD in particular seem to offer headroom above even what Gigabyte has clocked these out of the box. Curiously though, Gigabyte is continuing the trend of not touching the memory clockspeed of Kepler cards. It may be that the RAM chips are already at their max on the reference design, or there could be some behind the scenes talk with NVIDIA not waning Add In Board partners to touch the memory Unfortunately, all I have at this point is speculation, but it is a rather curious omission on such high end cards. That point becomes clearer when price is taken into consideration. Videocardz claims to have the pricing information for the three video cards, and the custom cards are going to cost you a large premium over reference cards. The rumored prices can be found in the charts above compared against the reference pricing, but the basic run down is that the GV-N66TOC-3GD will cost $415, the GV-N670OC-4GD will cost $550, and the GV-N680OC-4GD will cost (an astounding) $800.

I’m hoping that the rumored prices are in error and will be adjusted once the cards are available. These are neat cards that look to have plenty of cooling, but I’m still trying to figure out just what these cards have to offer to justify the huge jump over reference pricing. And, no, the superfluous gold plated HDMI connectors do not count. [For example, the 4GB Galaxy GTX 670 we recently reviewed was only $70 over reference while the Gigabyte card is rumored to be $150!]

The Gigabyte N66TOC-3GD factory overclocked GPU.

You can find links to the Gigabyte product pages in the charts above. If you have not already, please check out our GTX 660 Ti, GTX 670, and GTX 680 graphics card reviews for the full scoop on the various Kepler iterations. And if you are considering the Gigabyte N680OC-4GD, you should probably check out the dual GPU GTX 690 review as well (heh).

Spicing up the GTX 670

The Power Edition graphics card series from MSI is a relatively new addition to its lineup. The Power Edition often mimics that of the higher-end Lightning series, but at a far lower price (and perhaps a smaller feature set). This allows MSI to split the difference between the reference class boards and the high end Lightning GPUs.

Doing this allows users a greater variety of products to choose from, and to better tailor users' purchases by their needs and financial means. Not everyone wants to pay $600 for a GTX 680 Lightning, but what if someone was able to get similar cooling, quality, and overclocking potential for a much lower price? This is what MSI has done with one of its latest Power Edition cards.

The GTX 670 Power Edition

The NVIDIA GTX 670 cards have received accolades throughout the review press. It is a great combination of performance, power consumption, heat production, and price. It certainly caused AMD a great amount of alarm, and it hurriedly cut prices on the HD 7900 series of cards in response. The GTX 670 is a slightly cut-down version of the full GTX 680, and it runs very close to the clock speed of its bigger brother. In fact, other than texture and stream unit count, the cards are nearly identical.

Overclocked and 4GB Strong

Even though the Kepler GK104 GPU is now matured in the market, there is still a ton of life left in this not-so-small chip and Galaxy sent us a new graphics card to demonstrate just that. The Galaxy GeForce GTX 670 GC 4GB card that we are reviewing today takes the GTX 670 GPU (originally released and reviewed on May 10th) and juices it up on two different fronts: clock rates and memory capacity.

The Galaxy GTX 670 GC 4GB graphics card is based on GK104 as mentioned below and meets most of the same specifications as the reference GTX 670. That includes 1344 CUDA cores or stream processors, 112 texture units and 32 ROP units along with a 256-bit GDDR5 memory bus.

The GC title indicates that the Galaxy GTX 670 GC 4GB is overclocked as well - this card runs at 1006 MHz base clock, 1085 MHz Boost clock and 1500 MHz memory clock. Compared to the defaults of 915 MHz, 980 MHz and 1500 MHz (respectively) this Galaxy model gets a 10% increase in clock speed though we'll see how much that translates into gaming performance as we go through our review.

Of course, also in the title of the review, the Galaxy GTX 670 GC includes 4GB of frame buffer, twice as much as the reference cards. The goal is obviously to attract gamers with high resolution screens (2560x1600 or 2560x1440) as well as users interested in triple panel NVIDIA Surround gaming. We test both of those resolutions in our game collection on the following pages to see just how that works out.

Last week, additional information leaked about the upcoming Kepler-based NVIDIA GTX 660 Ti graphics card. Those rumors suggested that the GPU would be very similar to the one found in existing GTX 670 (which we recently reviewed).

We speculated that the GTX 660 Ti could be an awesome card, assuming the price was right. While we do not have any pricing information–the best guess from rumors is that it is in the $300 to $400 range–as a result of Tweaktown breaking the release date, we now know that the latest rumors were true.

The GTX 660Ti will feature 1344 CUDA cores and 2GB of GDDR5 memory on a 192-bit memory bus. This puts the GTX 660 Ti very close to the current 670 in terms of potential performance. According to the leaked benchmarks, that seems to be the case. The GTX 660 Ti is only a couple of frames behind the GTX 670 in Just Cause 2 and Dirt 3, for example. Considering this card is likely to use a bit less power and cost less, it is shaping up to be a rather desirable card. If this ends up being on the low end of the $300-400 range (rumors suggest otherwise, however), I suspect many gamers are going to opt for this new Kepler card rather than the more expensive and only very slightly faster GTX 670.

What do you think about the GTX 660 Ti, is the card you were hoping for?

Earlier this year, we covered rumors on several mid-range NVIDIA Kepler graphics cards. Swedish enthusiast site Sweclockers claims to have launch specifications and pricing on one of those cards: the GTX 660 Ti. The specifications the site has managed to get a hold of reinforce previous rumors except for the amount of RAM. While initial reports suggested the GTX 660 Ti would have either 1.5 GB or 3 GB, Sweclockers has stated that the card will have 2 GB of GDDR5 memory.

Aside from the bump down in the memory interface to a 192-bit bus (from the 256-bit interface of the GTX 670) capable of 144.19 GB/s throughput, the GTX 660 Ti is nearly the same as the currently available GTX 670. Allegedly, the GTX 660 Ti will run at the same GPU and memory clockspeeds as the GTX 670 – 915 MHz base/980 MHz boost and 6008 MHz effective respectively. The reference design will further be a dual-slot design with two DVI, one HDMI, and one DisplayPort output. Allegedly, it will be powered by two six-pin PCI-E power connectors and will have a 150W TDP, which means it needs slightly less cooling than the GTX 670 (which has a 170W TDP).

Interestingly, the site claims that the GTX 660 Ti will be available for purchase on August 16, 2012 for a bit over 3000 SEK (including VAT) which is roughly $436 (minus VAT since we do not have that). This price is in contrast to our prediction of a $300 to $400 graphics card. It may end up being very close to the high-end $400 number, or a bit above as it is very similar to the GTX 670. Hopefully the change in the amount of graphics memory means that you will be able to get custom 4GB GTX 660 Ti cards.

You can find more information about NVIDIA’s latest “Kepler” GK104 cards in our recent GTX 670 review. Are you ready for the mid-range NVIDIA cards? Which ones are you planning to get, should the rumored specs hold true?

Due to popular request, I am going to try to keep our readers up to date on the current availability of graphics cards and pricing on the market. With the recent price drops from AMD, the frequent out-of-stock status of the GTX 680 cards and the release of the GTX 670, I thought this would be a great summary of the current situation.

AMD's Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3GB

We will try to post new updates weekly or maybe more frequently as we see fit. Newegg is our partner of choice for this today, so let's see what we have.

In a stunning change of fate, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 has been steadily in stock for the last few weeks but the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition that we reviewed on June 24th has yet to show its face. Yes, you can find HD 7970 cards running at 1000 MHz core clock speeds (and higher) though they don't have the 6.0 Gbps memory speeds nor the "PowerTune with Boost" technology that really set the new version of the GPU apart.

When asked, AMD told us to expect Sapphire and XFX models in stock early next week - so we'll definitely keep an eye on the online retailers for that.

The only other changes are some more price drops on the AMD side. You can now get a standard HD 7970 for $80 less than the GeForce GTX 680 and the Radeon HD 7950 for $50 less than the GTX 670. AMD knows that with NVIDIA's great branding and marketing they needed to make a case for their GPUs over the competition and these types of price cuts really give gamers two great options for their gaming dollar.

We are still waiting on NVIDIA's answer for sub-$399 GPUs based on Kepler - hopefully we won't be waiting long.

If you are looking for our latest graphics reviews to judge the performance of the above cards, here you go: